Pac-10
Scouting Services or Boosters: Oregon’s Gray Area
Yahoo Sports reported last night that the University of Oregon is under NCAA investigation for their payments of $28,000 to two “scouting services” with connections to recruits.
According to public invoices (see here and here) obtained by Yahoo! Sports, Oregon paid more than $28,000 to two men with personal ties to current Ducks for “recruiting services” – specifically, video of potential prospects. Recruiting services are common and legal (see below), but if either of the recipients in this case is determined to have had a role in a prospects’ recruitment, he could be classified as a booster and bring significant heat from the NCAA.
As one might expect, this has not gone unnoticed and virtually every major college football blog is talking about that report this morning1. The short-form headlines are much more damning — typically insinuating that Oregon was paying for recruits — than the current state of the facts, but it’s not as simple as it might initially appear.
- Just a sampling: Addicted to Quack, Dr. Saturday, SI.com, Maize n Brew, Double-T Nation, and Roll Bama Roll [↩]
